


I need you so much closer

by angrywarrior69



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Brainwashing, Episode: s06e16-17 Workforce, F/M, Hurt, Memory Loss, Workforce add on, first person POV, no comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-25 21:39:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16668781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angrywarrior69/pseuds/angrywarrior69
Summary: A little Workforce add-on where Chakotay tries to get Kathryn to remember.





	1. The rhythm of our footsteps

“I want to go back to Quarra,” she says, putting down the picture of her with Mark and Molly.

“Captain, just give it some time. The doctor's treatment could work soon.”

Her voice is lined with anger that is more dangerous than anything she normally allows to slip free. Her slightly outgrown hair sways as she shakes her head.

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

My heart lodges itself in my throat. She seems to be taking longer than the others.

“I'm sorry-- Kathryn.” I try, “Why don't you look around a bit longer?”

“I don't want to. I want to go home.”

“This is your home.”

The regret hits me immediately, but my response is so instinctive that there is no real thought behind it or time to stop myself. Ultimately though, I am glad for provoking her, because it brakes through her chilled exterior and for a moment, I see her.

The woman I know suddenly appears. She snaps through the terrified, brainwashed shell of a human and steps up to me, the fire of a thousand won battles in her eyes. A stare that I never wanted to be on the receiving end of, but at the same time, am so grateful to see.

“You can't keep me here.”

It isn't a threat or a plead.

It isn't a challenge.

Her words are a saber rattling in its sheath, the distant thunder before a storm. She is beautiful and determined and broken all at once, and all I want to do is hold her and cry out my frustration.

There is the captain. There is my Kathryn.

And I have to let her go.

For the millionth time today I choke on everything I want to say, and slowly shake my head.

“I can't. I won't.”

“Take me back.”

Our walk to the transporter room is a tense stretch of silence. It's strange to have her walk behind me, and I swear I can feel her eyes drilling into the back of my skull. She steps onto the pad and I wave the transporter operator away.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

I straighten myself and blink back the longing she detects on my face. “I hope you have somewhere safe and warm to go.”

She tilts her chin up and looks at me warily, like I'm the man who broke into her apartment and bled all over the place. She doesn't see me or our past, she sees the lying alien man who pointed a gun at her.

She has every right to look at me like I can't be trusted.

And it kills me.

I need to look away, so I fiddle with the control panel.

When I look up, the most unguarded expression I've ever seen has settled across her features, though her typically expressive eyes are hauntingly empty. It turns my skin to stone and freezes my blood.

“Anywhere is better than here.”

If there had been more emphasis to her words, they could have sounded intentionally hurtful, but without the authority behind them, she sounds lost, betrayed.

My Kathryn is gone again. When she speaks, her voice is dry and detached.

“What are you waiting for?”

My shaking fingers line up on the controls and I take one more long look at her, not wanting her to go, let alone be the one who sends her back to that damned planet.

“You have to remember, Kathryn.”

Something flashes in her eyes as the transporter whirs and she shimmers away. I turn from shivering to overheating in an instant. My face grows hot and my tears drop onto the panel.

The next thing I remember is looking up to into the eyes of the ECH as he kneels down next to where I sit on the floor.

“She'll be back," he says with a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

With an absent nod, I let him help me up. The transporter pad catches my eye, but I turn away.

“She has to.”

I stride back out onto her ship, our home.

Without her.

 


	2. Crossing flood lands to your door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kathryn returns to Quarra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still unbetad, still a mess, feeling inspired though so why the hell not?

He's waiting for me when I transport back to the surface. A wide smile unabashedly spreads across my lips as I approach him. His smile is a bit wary, but broadens as I get closer.

“How was it?” he asks as he pulls me into a hug.

I deflate in his arms. The weight of a world that isn't mine creeps up my spine, begins to rest on my shoulders.

“I don't want to talk about it,” I mumble into his chest before pulling free. “Let's go home and I'll make us something to eat.”

“How about,” he pauses to spin me and lifts my chin for a kiss, “we go home and _I_ make us something to eat.”

I throw my head back and laugh. My smile remains through the kiss, I close my eyes and feel his passion, his love.

But then there is something else. Feelings and images rush me.

_My hand rests on something black and red, there are tears in my eyes._

_A small wooden box decorated with symbols._

_Green as far as the eyes can see, caring brown eyes, enveloping warmth._

_Disaster, disarray, death, destruction._

_Endless night._

_An antique bridge that glows in the sun._

_Incomprehensible burning, tearing through my body down to the bone._

A sharp pain in my skull.

Someone yells, but my eyelids are too heavy to open. There is a sting in my knees but I don't have the energy to understand why.

And then there is nothing.

~

When I come to, the brightness is already giving me a headache. I briefly think to tell the doctor that not all of us are made of light and appreciate not being blinded by it. My eyes open slowly, expecting to see a shiny bald head and the worried face of my first officer, but neither approach. Instead the room sends me into a panic.

There are memories of radiation poisoning and escape pods. Blistering skin and abandoning ship. A medical center just like this one.

A steady beeping noise in the background increases tempo as I jolt upright and swing my legs off the bed. Too distracted by the bruises on my knees just below the hem of the medical gown, I don't notice the man sitting in a chair right in front of me.

“Hey,” he says with a sleepy smile.

I jump up and back away from him, looking for an exit and any loose items I can use as a weapon if need be.

“Where am I?”

He swallows hard and faces me from his sitting position.

“I brought you to the hospital when you collapsed.”

The door opens and two aliens come in. They're dressed in brown and blue robes like the ones I remember from the room where Tuvok and I were taken.

“Where am I? Where is my crew?”

I glance around again for another escape route or weapon and see nothing. The man in the chair stands and takes a step toward me.

“Kathryn, they're just the doctors. They want to help you.”

“That's what they said before when--” I take in a sharp breath as pain radiates through my temples and behind my eyes. It is so sudden and disorienting that my vision goes black and I feel myself falling.

Arms encircle me as my legs give way. I push at the body they belong to and struggle to regain control of my vision and limbs.

“Let me go,” I try to put force into the words but the pain keeps me subdued.

I hear the hiss of a hypospray and the throbbing in my skull, and everything else, fades away.

~

The next time I open my eyes is slightly easier than the last, and I see a familiar face and uniform.

“Doctor.”

“Welcome back, captain,” he says as she scans me, “I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner.”

I look around and try to sit up. “What?”

The tricorder clicks closed and he pushes me back down. “The resident medical staff were worried that you were too unstable to be moved.”

“What happened?”

“From what I can tell, the memory retrieval treatment was a bit harsher on you than some of the others. You're going to be perfectly fine, but I'd like to get you back to sickbay to run a few tests to determine exactly what happened.”

“The crew?”

“All present and accounted for. Some still require treatment.”

My head swims suddenly. I knead my fingertips into my forehead.

“This should help with the pain,” he says as he presses a hypo to my neck.

The fog around my thoughts recedes and my vision becomes sharper.

“Thank you.”

“Would you like to return to the ship now?”

“There's something I need to do first-” I pause, forming a plan. “Do you have any further business on Quarra?”

“You are the last one here.”

“Return to the ship.”

“Aye, captain.”

“And send down a uniform for me."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> might do one more little chapter if y'all aren't sick of it


End file.
